Summary: A narrative voice acknowledges the dimension of
"legend" or "story" that generates from every great
event such as the discovery of King Tuts tomb. Howard Carter finds
a medallion with the inscription: "Death will come swiftly to those
who disturb the tomb of the king." [The box reads: "Death shall
come on swift wings to him that toucheth the tomb of the pharaoh."
And a later discovery gives another version.]

Meanwhile, an October 1922 seance at Lord Carnarvons involving
his wife and daughter has Princess Vilma the medium giving warnings in an
otherworldly voice. The door blows open and the dog is weirded out.
Carnarvon is skeptical of this event and of Carters archaeological
enthusiasm after six years of financial investment. A female thief steals
an obscure papyrus fragment from Carnarvons collection.

Back at the site in Luxor, Carter resumes digging, chases and hires a
kid who claims to have found, not stolen, a relic, and dubs the kid
"Fishbait." Meanwhile, with a scarab device, fat bastard
Jermash Sebastian kills the woman who stole the papyrus fragment. He
takes it and the second fragment of papyrus which now together offer an
inventory of ancient treasures.

Disturbing a nest of scorpions kills one of Carters workers and
Miss Morrissey, a reporter, tries to generate a flap about the curse.
Fishbait finds stairs to the entrance to the tomb.

His wife tells George (Carnarvon) that he should not go to Egypt (and
theres some weird deal between them alluded to). Daughter Evelyn
will accompany him though.

Sebastian sits with Carter and threatens his expulsion from Egypt.
When Carnarvon arrives the seance medium warns him of doom. But the tomb
is opened and its a media event. Carter looks in to see the riches;
but Carnarvon sees frightening masks and the faces of statues.
Carters glorious announcement is interrupted by the death of his
snake-bitten foreman.

Sebastian tries to stir up trouble with Ministry of Antiquities agent
Ahkmed over Carter. To stave off trouble, Carter spends the night in the
tomb, and Fishbait sneaks in, almost getting killed by a knife during
what seems like an earthquake. Carnarvon sends his daughter home since
she is smitten with Carter. Carter is miffed about credit going
repeatedly to Carnarvon, so that at an establishment of drink and
bellydancing, he makes a spectacle of himself, ranting at the Egyptian
people and smashing what at first seems to be a priceless statuette.
Sebastian rats to the Ministry agent Ahkmed again.

Carter insists that the artifacts be transported by airplane, but his
new foreman is Sebastians lackey and bribes the pilot. With the
inventory finished, Carter breaks into the next room, the shrine. Oo. Ah.
Carnarvon waxes philosophical about destiny as Carter sees the
inscription: "Death comes on swift wings to those who disturb the
pharaohs tomb" (a third version).

Carnarvon and daughter go to a dinner party, but he says has nicked
himself shaving on the left cheek, it wont stop bleeding, and he
looks ill. As he collapses, Vilma says, "He was warned." A dog
howls. The doctors say he has an insect bite on his cheek which has
become infected and hes dying. On his deathbed he hears an
otherworldly whisper, "Why did you disturb me? ... Death is not an
end but a welcome beginning, as you will soon know." As he dies, six
separate power plants in Cairo conk out and his dog in England, James,
collapses and dies.

Daughter Evelyn is leaving and wont be back. She tells Carter,
"You live only for the past out here." So the reporter
Morrissey makes a move on him while back at the site the tomb door closes
on the sleeping Fishbait. The next morning the two find him
suffocated.

As Hassan, the new foreman, plans the smuggling of artifacts out of
the country on the plane, Sebastian blames Carter to the Ministry for
this pending crime. Carters car chase to the plane is to no avail.
The plane has been sabotaged and goes down in a firy explosion soon after
taking off. Reporter Morrissey figures it all out in the back seat after
seeing Sebastian and the minister present at the take-off, and she even
surmises what the papyrus fragment theft was all about. Back at the site,
though, Carter has been locked out pending investigation into the crash.
They nevertheless weasel in and the race is on to open the sarcophagus
with everyone else now locked out. Sebastian has the generator cut, but
they have a lamp. Minor help receive minor injuries in trying to raise
the lid, but they manage in time. The gold death mask ostensibly is what
Sebastian was after, and supposedly Carter revealing it here foiled his
plan -- the whole world would know of the treasure, instead of it being
in the possession of one man.

Mention is made of a wound on the boy kings left cheek: by an
insect bite? The narrator also asks again about the curse: "legend
or reality? fact or fantasy?" Akmed became a director of antiquities
but collapsed and died later. Princess Vilma failed to predict the
Depression and died in poverty. The wife of Carnarvon remarried. Evelyn
never went back to Egypt, married, and had a long life. Sebastian lived
in comfort and security. Sarah Morrissey went back to her job. Carter
lived his life in the Valley of the Kings -- a living curse?

Commentary: Its difficult to tell the factual from the
rubbish, and from the historical rubbish (what was rubbish but at least
was invented at the time). Anyway, if being "cursed" can amount
to a long life of comfort and security, get me a pickax. This would have
been a good tv movie in 1980 if Id seen it then with a bag of
Doritos and a batch of sloe gin fizzes.